Are your customers going to buy from you because you're on Twitter?

This same crowd somehow have forgotten that there are many ways to talk to customers. While it is hard to invest in "being everything to everyone", Twitter has been revolutionary in our small business, creating contacts and a brand known in more countries than we operate, through 140 characters that share everything from the latest Marketing Eye blog, to opinions on politics and community, and the odd personal photograph - the latest being a picture of me hitting a golf ball at the driving range.

In the past, when Marketing Eye has invested in being very active on Twitter, we have gained one new client a week. That means $24,000 per week for less than 2-hours of tweeting and responding to others that direct message us or include the Marketing Eye brand in their posts.

72 percent of Twitter followers are more likely to buy from companies they follow - so how do you as a small business leverage this?

• Share important company updates
• Be personal and never shy away from sharing the odd picture
• Reach out to prospects by following them and sending a direct message
• Support good causes and share with your followers
• Promote blogs and other opinion pieces
• Sign up for Hootsuite or a similar platform that provides powerful interaction mechanisms were you can pre-plan your tweeting schedule and provide analytics 
• Start interactions with influencers 
• Hashtag keywords and phrases with every post
• Use keywords so that your company comes up on searches
• Use platforms like www.manageflitter.com to build a two-way community 

As a big fan of Twitter and its role in lead generation, building brand and communicating directly with people that will influence your small businesses ability to connect at a level that you may not have been able to do previously - I can't speak highly enough of what Twitter has done for Marketing Eye on a global scale.

Be strategic on how you approach Twitter and its role in promoting your brand and lead generation, and do your research. Know what your competitors are doing and how they are interacting. Who are they following? Who follows them? What are they talking about? 

You will learn more as a small business by directly communicating with your target audience and creating a quality feed that educates you on the latest developments in your industry. 

Contact Marketing Eye if you would like a copy of a social media strategy template to help you deliver a compelling, results-orientated Twitter strategy.